Public clocks are everywhere in the Lower Hudson Valley. But if you forget your cellphone at home, it's a toss up whether a clock around here will be able to tell you exactly what time it is.

Of 116 clocks on store facades, church towers, municipal buildings and plaza pedestals around Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, more than half of them were wrong — some by minutes, others by hours, with many not working at all.

They include the region's most prominent timepiece, the clock atop the White Plains Metro-North Railroad station. Even Clocktower Commons, an office development in Southeast that should take time seriously, isn't immune. One of the four sides was right — but it was the one nobody sees because it faces a wooded area in back.

To capture the moment — right or wrong — 15 reporters and photographers fanned out around the region last Thursday morning, checking how clocks fared at 11:40 a.m.

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All four sides of the Mount Vernon City Hall clock read 12:55 at 11:40 a.m. Thursday, July 26, 2018(Photo: Jonathan Bandler/The Journal News)

Ten minutes earlier, the little hand and the big hand were pointing to 12 on all four faces of the clock atop the White Plains train station. At 11:40 a.m. they still pointed at the 12. And at noon, the clock was finally right, one of two times that happens each day. It's been that way for a few years now.

"Heh. I never noticed," said Brian Vogel, 33, of White Plains, who was catching a train to Manhattan. He said he never relies on anything but his cellphone to keep track of time. "I don't look up there very often. It's sad, really. Just another symbol of the MTA's many problems."

The cost of time

But while the MTA is embarking on a $92 million renovation of the station, the clock and tower are owned by the city, so are not the railroad's problem. The city has estimated that the cost to fix the clock is about $450,000, an amount officials don't intend to spend at a time when the city is preparing a redevelopment of several city-owned properties around the train station, said Karen Pasquale, senior adviser to Mayor Tom Roach.

Many of the region's faux vintage clocks were added over the past two decades as communities sought to spruce up their downtowns. A clock harkened to the days when everyone on Main Street used them not just as landmarks but to tell time and set their watches.

Haverstraw's clock at the entrance to Town Hall commemorates the town's quadricentennial in 2016. Elmsford installed its Centennial clock at Main Street and Route 9A in 2010. Eastchester put a clock on Mill Road outside Town Hall to remember the victims of 9/11.

Most of those clocks have withstood the test of time, with the civic pride that prompted their purchase making sure they are kept accurate.

Shopping center and storefront clocks are a different matter. Many bank clocks remain even if the banks are no longer there. At the old Eastchester Savings Bank branch on East 1st Street in Mount Vernon, the clock is stuck at 4:50.

Neither the Pelham National Bank nor the Pelham Post Office still occupy the building at 1 Wolfs Lane but the clock jutting out from the corner still works, sort of. You can rely on it to catch the train across the street — but you'll be five minutes early.

Tom Bernardin was dismayed by the number of mistaken clocks but not particularly surprised. He heads the group Save America's Clocks, a New York City-based non-profit dedicated to identifying and preserving public clocks of all kinds. Its website declares that "non-working clocks betray the public trust and send out a message that nobody's home."

"A working clock was once a major priority; people relied on them, set their watches to them," Bernardin said. "Many people now like the idea of having a clock. And it should be an embarrassment when it doesn't work but there's no follow through."

Bedford loves its clock

If all the clocks got the same attention a dozen Bedford residents give their neighborhood clock, they'd all run perfectly. They are the Clock Winders of the Sutton Clock Tower, a red brick edifice where Guard Hill and Succabone roads meet.

The time and strike clock and its 550-pound bell were installed in the Sutton family barn in the late 1880s. The barn burned down but the clock was saved and the tower was built to house it in 1939.

Each winder has a different month, during which they climb the wood ladder inside once a week and crank the clock enough to keep it going until the next week.

Nancy Vincent, a winder since 1996, doesn't find herself noticing when other public clocks are wrong. She's focused enough on her job close to home. "It's a point of pride for us. A responsibility to keep this one going," Vincent said.

"I think to myself 'I hope I don't let that happen here.' That would be bad," said Mockridge, who joined the winders in 2000. "Its a little bit of negative, positive reinforcement."

Ramapo struggles with upkeep

Ramapo spent more than $200,000 a decade ago for seven clocks that were displayed all over town, from Torne Valley Road and downtown Suffern to the Rockland Boulders stadium and New Hempstead Road.

And they came with an added feature that rankled many, a taped greeting from then-Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence. The greeting was gone last year as soon as St. Lawrence was convicted of the federal corruption charges that landed him in prison.

But their history of being ahead or behind the times has continued.

In late 2016, the four sides of the Lake Suzanne clock in Monsey each showed a different time — none of them correct.

A year ago, the Town Board approved spending $531 per year per clock for maintenance and the clocks were fixed in April. But already time has passed some by.

Outside the Finkelstein Memorial Library in Spring Valley last week the clock was hours off, as was the clock at Route 45 and West Eckerson Road in Hillcrest.

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11:40 a.m. A view of the Town of Ramapo clock in front of Finkelstein Memorial Library in Spring Valley July 26, 2018.(Photo: Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News)

Town Supervisor Michael Specht was unaware the clocks were wrong again until a reporter told him. He said the culprit was likely either a power surge or too much moisture.

A town employee, Bob Dawson, checked on the Hillcrest clock Monday morning. Finding no water inside, he reset the clock, and 15 minutes later it was displaying the right time again.

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Bob Dawson, a custodian with the Town of Ramapo checks the inside of the clock on Route 45 in Spring Valley on July 30, 2018.(Photo: Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News)

"They were purchased, they should work," Specht said. "It would be embarrassing for them to not tell the right time and just have them up as statues."

All hands point to Cincinnati

The Suffern clock, at Routes 59 and 202, was turned over to the village in February. It was not working last week — but across the street, the old Comesky Block clock on the corner had the right time.

Like those in Ramapo, two dozen or so of the ornate clocks in the region are Howard replica/Seth Thomas post varieties produced by The Verdin Co., a Cincinnati-based clockmaker in business since 1842.

Nearly all of them were accurate last week but several — like the one outside the White Plains Public Library — have been fixed and upgraded.

Jeannie Caldwell, the product manager for Verdin's post-clock department, said the company urges customers to dedicate a power line for the clocks to minimize stoppages. And motors generally must be replaced every 10 to 12 years.

"You can ask most mayors who have clocks, if it's not working everyone calls," said Caldwell.

She said she knows because her company also gets calls from people wondering why their town's clocks don't work and asking for them to be fixed — even when they aren't Verdin clocks.

Mount Kisco multiple time zones?

The clock in Mount Kisco's Kirby Plaza that was bought by the village beautification committee in 2004 had stopped working for several years until it was fixed in March.

The time-challenged Village Hall clock tower two blocks away is another matter, though, with different times showing on three sides and no hands on the fourth.

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The clock on top of the Village Hall in Mount Kisco photographed at 11:40 AM on Thursday, July 26, 2018. (Photo: John Meore/The Journal News)

Its crumbling cupola atop the historic colonial revival building is in major need of an overhaul, with the glass around the clock faces containing mercury, the new mayor, Gina Picinich, said.

She frequently gets questions about why the village's home can't tell time.

"The fact that a public clock tells the wrong time is not detrimental to people in their everyday lives," Picinich said. "Its more about the aesthetics and showing the care and regard to maintain things. People want to see things kept the way they should be."

Just fixing the clock "would not be money well spent," the mayor said, so a new clock will wait for a full restoration of the tower. But she conceded there is no money for that in this year's budget and she wouldn't even hazard a guess as to what it would eventually cost.

Peekskill goes digital

Verdin is also involved in the reconstruction of the clock on the historic Peekskill Presbyterian Church, a 172-year-old building on South Street. Back when the city was a village, officials relied on the clock to know when their meetings started.

Peekskill Presbyterian Church on South Street, photographed on July 26, 2018. The electric clock that was installed in 1968 will be replaced this year(Photo: Jonathan Bandler/lohud)

The original weight-driven clock lasted until 1968 when it was replaced by an electronic version from Verdin.

The motor finally gave way two years ago. Replacing it was impossible because the manufacturer wasn't making that motor anymore, said Richard Cerreta, a church member who is project manager for the clock and bell replacement.

"They told us 'We'll be glad to make the motor again, but you'll have to buy a hundred of them,' " Cerreta said. "That wasn't going to happen."

They finally went back to Verdin and it was decided a new digital clock with a lithium battery backup would be installed. That will allow them to reset the clock remotely when necessary. The $20,000 project is expected to wrap up by the end of October.

Getting the bell fixed was the main priority — "a church without a bell is a church without a voice," Cerreta said. But he noted that the clock has tremendous value, not just aesthetically and historically but practically as well.

"There's a bus stop across the street and people who don't have cellphones would rely on it to coordinate their schedules," Ceretta said. "They should have that again."

Always 8:07 in Nyack

Last Thursday, there was mixed reaction to the aberrant clocks from people who mostly look down, not up, to tell time.

At the Village Square Shopping Center on Boston Post Road in Mamaroneck, a single face clock above Trader Joe's was more than an hour off.

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11:40 a.m - Village Square Shopping Center, Mamaroneck The time was an hour and five minutes off. It's a one-sided, front-facing clock above the Trader Joe's storefront just south of Mamaroneck High School.(Photo: Josh Thomson/The Journal News)

Mamaroneck resident Ashley Pitrulle said she barely noticed it and wasn't particularly bothered that it was wrong.

"In the digital world that we live in, I almost assumed it would be wrong," she said. "We don't look at it because we have our own clocks on us."

Homeless people who sit by the two-sided clock on Main Street in Nyack regularly cross the road to the Casa Del Sol restaurant and ask server Lindsey Chirico for the time.

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11:40 a.m The two-sided Nyack village clock on Main Street remains broken on both sides, with the clock set at 8:07.(Photo: Mike Zacchio/The Journal News)

That's because the clock is broken, stuck on 8:07.

She hadn't even realized the clock was there despite walking past it every day.

"I think it's a poor representation of Nyack," Chirico said. "It will probably sit here (with the wrong time) until somebody makes an effort to fix it. I think it should be fixed."

Check the database: Search public clocks in Rockland, Westchester and Putnam counties. Filter by town to find out if the ones near you are reliable. lohud.us/2Os9GBL